


Pressure

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: LAOFT Extras [59]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Panic Attack, Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 03:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20351281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Asking for help is not a weakness.This is one of those things Logan knows in theory but doesn’t really…actuallybelieve.Thomas pretty much immediately calls bullshit.





	Pressure

**Author's Note:**

> for these prompts
> 
> “Does Logan still get very overwhelmed as he gets older, enough to have sensory overload? If so, how does he deal with it, especially in situations when he’s separated from his brother or his boyfriends, like when he’s at college?” ( from an unsigned anon)
> 
> “Does Logan ever get overstimulated away from home or the others? Does he ever get into a downward spiral? Like, does he get frustrated with himself for not having better control over his emotions and abilities and- whoops! In being annoyed about it he’s proving his own point and making it worse- but he has to try to handle it alone-?” (from 🏹 anon)
> 
> I have no clue if Colby College has a crying closet but we're gonna pretend they do regardless

The absolute worst part, is that Logan knows he asked for this.

And in the past months, Logan had found very little to complain about. The greenhouse was beautiful. There was acres of forest on the campus, so if Logan truly missed traipsing through the underbrush there was ample opportunity for him to do so. He had a cell phone for calling his brother, and a hard line in his dorm for calling his parents or Ms. Gage, and the mirror for his partners.

He had friends. Surely – surely Andy and Teagan would be willing to help Logan, if he asked.

The issue then became, of course, that Logan had to _ask._

Half the time Thomas seemed to know Logan was upset before _Logan_ knew it himself. His parents, nearly as proficient. Patton, empathetic to a fault, Roman so noble it seemed like he was trying to singlehandedly revive the concept of chivalry and Virgil, the only person Logan had ever met who truly seemed to understand what Logan was saying when he said the world was _too much._

He had _none_ of them.

What he _had_ was a pair of noise canceling headphones, a crying closet with a ten minute time limit, and the pressing, panic-inducing knowledge that his closest loved one was currently three hours away from him.

Which is to say, what Logan _was having,_ was an _exceptionally_ awful day.

Stupid. It was _stupid,_ it was the separate bedrooms all over again but this time Logan was an actual legal adult living on his own in an unfamiliar town with strangers and outside of this closet was an entire sensory-hostile campus between him and his dorm and his weighted blanket which was a _shitty _substitute anyway because Logan didn’t want the _fucking_ blanket he wanted-

Logan just wanted Thomas. So much his palms itched, so much he felt like he might cry, like the space beside him where his brother was supposed to be had been carved out, hollow and echoing and _empty_.

Logan was approaching the halfway point on the timer, and he was no closer to calming himself. Every time he managed to start counting out a rhythm and fumbled, he expected someone else to pick up where he left off – but nobody did, and Logan would start spiraling all over again.

Counting, _counting_, he couldn’t _count_ by himself, it was well and truly pathetic-

Logan knew very well he could text Thomas an emergency message and his brother would immediately abandon anything he was doing to call him, but somehow – somehow it felt like admitting _defeat_.

Surely by now Logan should have outgrown this?

Seven minutes on the timer, and if anything Logan was worse than when he went in. The pillows in the closet were the wrong texture. The dark was helpful, but not nearly enough to counteract the increasing distress, or the knowledge that when the timer went off he would have to leave and re-enter the library with its too-bright florescent lights and people, people, _people_, who weren’t afraid of him which he’d thought was a positive until he’d realized it meant nobody bothered to avoid bumping into him.

He pulled out his phone, still too bright in spite of the fact that he’d turned the brightness down as low as possible.

**To: Bug  
[SOS]**

Unfortunately, Thomas did not beat the timer. Logan rose from the floor mechanically, reluctantly pulling the headphones off to loop around his neck. Gritting his teeth against the uncomfortable scrape of the backpack strap on his palm, he pressed his free hand hard into the center of his chest to try and simulate some kind of weight.

He left the closet, knowing he must look ridiculous, hunched over and shielding his eyes, knowing everybody must be staring at him. Hopefully they would presume he was hungover, and not that he was merely incapable of tolerating the objectively unobtrusive atmosphere of a _library._

Logan returned to the table slowly, trying to minimize his clothes touching him. He felt like all his skin was being scratched raw everywhere he touched _anything_.

“Hey, you were gone a whi-”

Logan couldn’t help it – he flinched.

He still wasn’t looking at them, and there was an awkward silence.

“Logan,” said Teagan, much quieter but still so _loud,_ “Are you okay?”

Logan shook his head.

“Jeez man, why didn’t you say so,” said Andy, as he and Teagan began gathering their things, “No offense but you kinda look like shit,”

Logan snorted, but it immediately morphed into a sort of pained grunt when it caused all of his clothes and the backpack to drag across his skin.

They left the library, and the two of them continued to ask slightly probing questions about what was wrong, which Logan supposed he should be grateful for but mostly he just wanted them to _stop talking._

His phone rang, the Steven Universe jingle, and Logan dropped his bag to the concrete of the sidewalk with _thud_ and scrambled to unlock the phone.

“Jesus, Logan, what the-”

“Bug,” Logan choked the second he managed to get the phone set to speaker.

“Are you by yourself?” said Thomas.

Logan frantically waved hand at Teagan.

“Uh, no,” they said, “We’re here, me and Andy,”

“Where are you?”

“Uh, outside on a sidewalk…?”

Thomas made a frustrated noise.

“Can you find a tree with some really dense shade?”

Logan made a feeble sound, and Teagan’s face turned outright alarmed as they started looking around them.

“Over here,” said Andy.

He grabbed Logan’s backpack off the ground, leading them over to a tree. Logan sat underneath it, leaning into the trunk and trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking.

“Can you put some earbuds in?” said Thomas.

Retrieving the earbuds from his bag and plugging them into the phone sounded like a lot of _moving,_ but luckily they were in one of the outer mesh pockets, clearly visible. Teagan retrieved and untangled them, handing them to Logan.

“Hey, Berry,” said Thomas, once he confirmed they were in place, “Nothing’s gonna hurt you,”

Logan snorted.

“Don’t be snarky,” Thomas laughed, “I mean it. It is a sensory thing or an anxious thing?”

Logan struggled around the words.

“… first,” he managed.

“Oh, gosh,” muttered Thomas, “Okay, um- I’m gonna hum a bit. Try and focus on that, and see if you can’t block the other stuff out, mkay?”

Logan made some kind of affirmative noise.

“If it’s not working tap the mic and I’ll try something else,”

Thomas started the melody – slow, but not dragging. Somewhere around 80 beats per minute. It was familiar, and… old, he thought, but Logan couldn’t place the title at the moment.

Logan stayed like that, huddled against the tree with his brother’s voice in his ears. It was… not right. Not what he wanted. But close – close enough he felt his muscles start to unclench a little at a time, until he was mostly relaxed against the tree but heavy and sort of dulled. He felt _exhausted._

“I have somewhat recovered,” he said dully, cutting of the melody. His voice was thick, and he realized at some point he’d stated crying. He gave Andy and Teagan, still hovering, a shaky thumbs up and removed the earbuds from his own ears and the phone.

“That’s good,” said Thomas, and Logan could hear the relief in his voice, and see in his head the way Thomas would relax and lean against the nearest vertical surface.

“Thank you. And you have my apologies,” said Logan.

The line went quiet.

“Why are you apologizing?” said Thomas.

Logan eyebrows pinched.

“Judging by the amount of time it took for you to respond, you were in class when you received my message,” he said, “I should not have interrupted you,”

“You _do_ get you sound crazy right now, right?_”_ said Thomas incredulously, “Like, full-on kooksville,”

“I… I do not,” said Logan, “Please elaborate,”

“You re not an interruption, _ever_,” said Thomas, “You take priority over my class if not- if not like, literally everything I do, Berry,”

“I should not have had to call you at all,” said Logan irritably, “You should not _have_ to prioritize the two things,”

“Uh, no, you absolutely _should_ call me,” said Thomas, and he sounded like he though this was the most bizarre conversation they’d ever had, “Why on earth do you think you shouldn’t?”

“_Because we are not children_,” snapped Logan.

An awkward silence fell. Thomas didn’t respond, and Teagan shuffled uncomfortably while Andy rubbed the back of his neck.

“We’re gonna-”

Teagan pointed over their shoulder.

“We’re gonna give you two, um. A minute,”

They grabbed Andy by the hand and fairly bolted.

Logan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I apologize for snapping at you,” said Logan.

Thomas didn’t say anything. Logan felt his ears start to burn with shame.

“You’re right,” said Thomas quietly, “We’re not children,”

Logan’s stomach twisted.

“But we’re still brothers,” he said gently.

“I should be able to deal with this myself,”

“No,” said Thomas, still soft, “_That_ you’re definitely wrong about,”

“Normal people-”

“‘Normal people’ ask for help all the time,” said Thomas, and the phrase came out of his mouth just as acid as it always did, “With google or libraries or- I call you when I need help with my stupid gen eds all the time, Berry,”

“That’s different,”

“Why?”

Logan hesitated.

“I-”

He huffed.

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

“See?” said Thomas, “I’ve got half of it, you’ve got the other half – between the two of us we know everything,”

Logan snickered.

“Know-it-all,”

“Were you even _listening_, I know _half_ of it all, I just said that,”

Logan tried to contain his laughter and failed miserably.

And really – there were worse things. Logan could deal with only knowing _half_ of it all.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me at [@tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors](tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com) over on tumblr!


End file.
